Helike

Welcome to the shores of the Corinthian Gulf, a region haunted by the memory of a city that vanished in a single night. You are standing in the vicinity of He-lee-kay, once the most powerful city in the Archaean League and a…

Our journey begins along the coast, where the beauty of the Corinthian Gulf masks the destructive power of the sea. For generations, this was the primary focus of those searching for He-lee-kay. …

Just inland from the current shoreline, we reach the area where sonar first identified signs of human intervention. In nineteen eighty-eight, Katsonopoulou’s team used sonar scanners to map the transition between the sea and the…

To narrow the search area on land, archaeologists turned to the ancient geographer Pausanias, who visited the region in the second century of the Common Era. He provided a crucial set of coordinates: He-lee-kay was seven…

In the nineteen-nineties, the search moved into the olive groves near the village of Rizomylos. It was here that the first boreholes were drilled, reaching depths of fifteen meters. …

The question of 'how' the city was destroyed remained. Ancient accounts spoke of Poseidon striking the earth with his trident, causing the ground to sink and a tidal wave to roll in. …

While the Classical city of He-lee-kay is the most famous layer of this site, the excavations also revealed a significant Roman presence. After the disaster, the area was not abandoned forever. …

As we conclude our tour of He-lee-kay, we are left with a profound sense of the fragility of civilization. This was a city that reached the heights of prosperity, a powerhouse of the ancient world that believed its patron god,…